Stairway to Heaven
by catmittens
Summary: Set a year after the Mirai Jinzouningen's destruction. When a strange new tenant moves into the apartment across from Eva, an odd one herself, she has no idea what she's getting herself and her friends into when she decides to make friends. R&R, pweeeze?
1. Chapter the First

I really need to concentrate on one freaking fanfiction at a time _  
  
Oh well! XD I have only one warning for you: if you do not like OC's, and are irritated when the story is told from the POV (granted, not entirely told from their POV) then please don't whine because you have been forewarned. But I do promise you IT IS WELL WRITTEN. Eva might seem a bit bitchy and/or strange (wai, who isn't? lol) but that's because it's the first chapter. Reece, is based on a real-life friend of mine. Irritatingness and all. Only my friend has no boyfriend. Thank god. I don't think I'd survive such a calamity. Plus my real-life friend would KILL me if she saw a character based on her even showing interest in alcohol. Or cursing. lol.  
  
This will be the only DISCLAIMER: I officially do NOT own DBZ, no matter how many times I beg Toriyama to please let me have the rights for my 17th birthday. Dratted hell. But Eva is mine. Reece is up for grabs.  
  
Italics: /word(s)/ would someone do me a favor and tell me how to make italics real? it's really pissing me off when it looks crappy like it does with it has little // around the words...X_x  
  
**  
  
"And--ohmygod--he's SO hot!!"  
  
"Right okay--we've established that," Eva laughed, "So what's this new guy /look/ like?"  
  
"Oh--ohmygod--he's got long black hair and blue eyes, he's so /hottt/...you got any more vodka?"  
  
"Ran out last night," Eva said and stood up from the couch. "Nueva-san doesn't want us to help him move in does he?"  
  
"Apparently he doesn't have /anything/ to move in /with/," Eva's friend, Reece, said, quite sadly.  
  
The two were in Eva's little run-down tenement room, and for a cheap, rent-free room it was quite well appointed. Although most of the things Eva owned were things that wouldn't have crap value to anyone else, there were a few valuables mixed in. "Must've lost everything to the androids," Eva commented blandly and kicked open the mini-fridge in the corner, hooked up to the same outlet she used for her hair dryer. "What'cha want? We got coke or that ginger ale shit Mandy brought over last time she was in town."  
  
"And that would be what, four months old? Coke, please," Reece said. "I can't believe you keep that kind of crap for that long."  
  
Eva shrugged. "Go figure." She pulled two cokes out of the mini-fridge and kicked it closed again with her heel. "You know I'm strange like that."  
  
"Yeah, I know. Four months keeping a six-pack of ginger ale ain't nothing on the same bitch who collects /newspapers/ from sixty years ago."  
  
"Oh, shut up," Eva laughed at the slight tease. "I just got the ones from almost thirty years ago in the mail yesterday."  
  
"About the aliens coming to earth?" Reece asked, popping open the coke.  
  
"Yup," Eva nodded. "Wanna see 'em?"  
  
"Do I want to get killed by the androids?" Reece said dryly.  
  
Eva rolled her eyes. "Oh, /thank you/ for being a supportive friend and at least pretending to be interested. Besides, the androids are dead."  
  
Suddenly Reece's pretty brown eyes lit up. "I know! Ain't that great?"  
  
"Shit yeah," Eva laughed.  
  
"So...should we go say hello to your new neighbor?" Reece asked, eyes sparkling mischeviously.  
  
"No," Eva replied bluntly.  
  
"Why not?!" Reece demanded, hurt.  
  
"Because I want you to look at my newspapers before we go look at the hot new guy," Eva said, smiling. "Plus I don't think he really wants to be bothered right now. He's just moved in an hour ago. Let's let him get acclimated first, we'll start with the flirting next."  
  
"Oh--my god. You fucking /loser/! Someone /else/'ll get to him first!"  
  
"I spent two hundred zeni on the damn things and I ain't looked at them yet," Eva replied.  
  
"/Shit/," Reece said, feeling for at least the millionth time like Eva was losing /another/ chance. "Tell you what. If we go talk to him /now/, give him the 'hello how are you welcome to our humble abode--we're not taken' bit, I'll sit there and act interested while you prattle on about people who've been dead for ten years. For as long as you want. Deal?"  
  
"You know the last time you said that--"  
  
"The last time I said that was the night I had a date with Tad. I don't got nothin' going on tonight. Just one question?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"What in the /hell/ is so damn wonderful about /newspapers/?"  
  
"They're interesting."  
  
"Real people are /more/ interesting."  
  
Eva rolled her eyes. "I'm sure they are. But most people I know are more likely to slit my throat than take me out for a drink."  
  
Reece silenced at the reference. "That's just because you manage to get yourself in deeper than you should. You've got a hell of a masochistic side."  
  
"Maybe, no, probably most likely," Eva chuckled, and drained her can. "So, we gonna go meet this new guy or what?"  
  
~~  
  
Reece had to knock hard at least twenty times before the 'new guy' would come out.  
  
"What do /you/ two want?" he demanded, glaring at them with cold, expressionless, pale blue eyes.  
  
Reece-chan wasn't kidding, Eva thought, unconsciously staring back at him with a midly curious expression gracing her usually serious face. He /was/ good looking. Long black hair and the slanted eyes, the palest blue color she'd ever seen on anything but a corpse. "You're new to the building, huh?" Eva said bluntly.  
  
"Apparently," the boy growled back at her.  
  
Eva smiled. "So we came by to say hi. I have the room across from yours," Eva said and pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "If you need anything just knock on my door."  
  
"I'll make a note of it," he snapped and began to close the door.  
  
Reece jumped in and said, "So, what's your name?"  
  
"Juunana...gou," he growled, almost reluctantly.  
  
Reece seemed a bit surprised and even a little unconvinced but Eva knew better than to comment on it. "Parent's weren't very imaginative, eh?" Eva said, still smiling. For some reason she liked him right off the bat.  
  
"You could say that," he replied in a monotone voice.  
  
There, I got him to smile a little, Eva thought victoriously. "Oh, before we go."  
  
Reece looked at Eva sharply. Eva knew she was going to catch hell for cutting this short, but Eva got the feeling he wasn't a person to be pushed too far and tolerate it.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Has Mrs. Haren come by yet?"  
  
"Was she the fat woman in the muumuu?"  
  
Eva grinned. "No. That's Farling. /She's/ a bit pushy but friendly anyway. Haren...watch out for her. If you're not careful she'll wind up engaging you to one of those damn daughters of hers."  
  
He looked semi shocked. "You're not serious," he said after a moment.  
  
"Happened to Kou Gaijin!" Reece put in. "Poor guy."  
  
"Like I said, if you need anything my room is right across the hall," Eva said, dragging a /very/ reluctant Reece with her.  
  
"Oh! And my apartment's two flights up and's number 451! If Eva's not in you can just come up there! Yeah, and you can call me at--"  
  
"The door's shut, Reece," Eva said quietly.  
  
"Damn it, Eva!" Reece snapped at her friend.  
  
Eva put her hands behind her head and laced her fingers. "He just doesn't want to be bothered, so we won't bother him for now. Want to go somewhere tonight?"  
  
Reece glared at her. "You know, you /suck/ at this," Reece said rather bluntly.  
  
"You want to go out tonight or not?"  
  
"Ask him to come with us!" Reece crowed, pointing at the shut (and probably locked) door. "Damn it, ask him to come! I'll bring Juri and you can take /that/ guy!"  
  
"Reece," Eva groaned. "You know he can probably hear us in the halls."  
  
"I don't care! /Ask him/!"  
  
"Fine, I'll ask him," Eva relented, feeling embarrassed for this Juunana person. "I'll meet you at nine and we'll go with you and Juri. If he says yes."  
  
"/If/?" Reece pushed.  
  
"Yes, /if/!" Eva snapped, finally having been irked enough to fire back.  
  
"Whatever...I'm going up to my room," Reece said, thoroughly irritated with Eva. "I bet you're gay."  
  
"I am /not/!" Eva snapped again as she shut her door.  
  
"Well you sure as hell don't give me much of an idea that you /ain't/!" Reece yelled through the wall.  
  
Eva didn't feel like answering that and slumped down on her couch.  
  
"Does Eva have any vodka?" she mumbled to herself as she leaned over and reached into the crack between the arm rest and the cushion; where most people managed to lose remotes. "Not for anyone else maybe, they'd drink it all, but for Eva, yes."  
  
She unscrewed the top and reached for one of the taller shot glasses she kept in a little tray on her table. It was one of the many worthless gatherings of items she'd managed to come across, inherit, or get suckered into buying over the years.  
  
~~  
  
///BangbangbangbangBANG///!!  
  
"/Eva/! Eva did you ask him?! EVA!!"  
  
Eva jerked up from the couch. Where was she?!  
  
Oh...she was on her couch. Yeah. Oops.  
  
She stood up, wondering if she could get away from her apparently sadistic best friend. You just don't knock on someone's door like that. Especially when they have a headache. Cough.  
  
Eva opened the door and Reece said, already gussied up for the evening, "So didja ask him?"  
  
Behind her Juri offered her a friendly wave and Eva snarled irritably. "Damn it Reece, I have a fucking headache!"  
  
"Did you?"  
  
"No, goddamnit! And get in here. I'll get changed, and I'll go ask him."  
  
The pair entered the little tenement room and Reece immediately said, "I thought you said you didn't have anything to drink!"  
  
"I lied," Eva muttered disconsolately as she slunk off to her bedroom.  
  
Reece sighed. Eva wasn't the most sweet girl there ever was but most of the time she was a bit more...compliant might be a good word. Oh well.  
  
Ten minutes later, Eva came back out wearing a black tube top and short skirt. Folded over her arm was the heaviest black coat she owned. To Reece and Juri, that meant only one thing. "You're not coming with us with a /gun/ are you?"  
  
"Yup," Eva replied tonelessly.  
  
Niether Reece or Juri ever really wanted to ask why Eva felt she needed to walk around armed. Even if they lived in the red-light district...nobody ever bothered anyone who didn't want to be bothered. At least that was the way it was /here/, it was kind of the honor system, left over from the time of the androids. It felt good to be able to put that in a past tense.  
  
But then Eva was...in a position to be bothered.  
  
Eva knocked once or twice on the door, and waited patiently.  
  
The door opened and Juunana stared out at her, with the same distasteful expression on his face. "What /now/?"  
  
"I was...wondering if you would like to come out with us tonight," Eva said, forcing herself not to sound panicked. She might have a bead on rougher aspects of life, but when it came to things like /this/, she fell flat on her face most of the time.  
  
He blinked at her. "Why would I want to do that?"  
  
"I have no fucking clue," Eva said. "It'd be fun, I guess."  
  
"I'd rather not waste my time," he said coldly.  
  
Eva raised her eyebrows and brushed a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I'll warn you...if you don't say yes to /me/, Reece is going to assume I didn't put enough effort into this and come and bother you until you say yes to /her/."  
  
"Is Reece your little friend?"  
  
"Right. I don't think I said my name earlier, either. It's Eva Morgan."  
  
"It's a pleasure," he said, sounding extremely sarcastic. "You're not going to leave until I say yes, are you?"  
  
"No."  
  
He rolled his eyes, hesitated for a long moment, and stepped out the door. "Fine, I'll come," he muttered, sounding extremely disgusted with the entire ordeal, locked his door and put the key in the pockets of his worn and torn looking jeans.  
  
"If it makes you feel any better I'll make sure we're back by midnight," Eva said.  
  
"Midnight? That's too early!" Reece cried out, having heard the comment as Eva opened her door.  
  
"I have business," Eva replied. "And I gotta get it finished by noon tomorrow so I'd rather get to bed early."  
  
"Oh," Juri said, and turned to Juunana. "So you're the guy who got old Mr. Tanaka's place? So are the rumors true? Is there really a torture chamber in there?"  
  
"Not as far as I know," Juunana said blandly.  
  
"Maybe you can stay out longer than midnight," Reece said to Juunana.  
  
"/No/--I've got to...find a job," he replied quickly.  
  
Eva tilted her head at the quick save. She got the impression he really just didn't like people in general. Which was perfectly alright, he must be some kind of introvert.  
  
"Are we ever going to go? It's already nine thirty," Juri said, peeking at his watch.  
  
**  
  
Hi, there...what's up? Don't worry...I'm definitely still working on all of my other fanfictions. I'm such a horrible, terrible authoress. Oh well! It's not like I abandon them or anything. I KNOW what I want to say but every time I write it down it just SUCKS. So I have to keep going over and over again until I'm up at night at 2:30 in the morning (like right now!!) and I get inspired again. Plus on DBZ:LA I don't HAVE the 1st volume of DBZ so there's a nice kink...  
  
PLEASE R&R!! I would wuv you if you did!! 


	2. Chapter the Second

Baq agaiiiiin...we have a 17 POVhere! Double squee! So we get to see what our lovely little android is up to in that head of his...whether he wants to charbroil someone or roast them on a spit or slow bake them...  
  
I'm really friggin' hungry. Forgive me.  
  
Dad is watching LoTR in the other room. So I have to say something obligatory. Ahem. JUUNANAGOU IS MY PRECIOUSSSSSS!!! AND WE WANTS HIM!!!!! Thank ya. Cough.  
  
And again...Italics = /word(s)/  
  
So, continuing our story...  
  
**  
  
"What in the /hell/ did you put into her drink /this/ time?" Juri asked and Eva would only smile.  
  
"You probably don't /want/ to know," Eva said, and slung the coat over the back of her couch. "Let's say it's expensive and leave it at that."  
  
Reece groaned. When she woke up she was going to have the mother of all migranes.  
  
"Make her drink lots of water and don't let her get away with not drinking it," Eva said and yawned. "She won't feel dehydrated but that's what that stuff'll do to you. Take her upstairs to her own room. The last time I let her sleep off a drug down here she barfed all over my floor and left me to clean it up."  
  
"Where'd that guy get to?"  
  
"Juunana?" Eva muttered absently, "Went back in his room."  
  
"Oh," Juri said and shrugged. "Thank God. I didn't like him much. If I ever tried to say anything to him he'd just look at me and it'd scare me shitless. His eyes just don't...didn't look like normal eyes!"  
  
"/Right/..." Eva said blandly. "Wha'd'you mean?"  
  
"I mean, his eyes are /blank/. They're fucking empty!"  
  
"No emotion or what?"  
  
"Well, that's part of it," Juri said, and hefted Reece a little; the girl wasn't a living stick. She moaned. "But they've just got this /look/. I couldn't tell you what it was but there's something fucking /wrong/ with that son of a bitch."  
  
"Well I thought he was nice," Eva defended.  
  
"You thought he was /nice/? What the fuck makes you think he's /nice/?!"  
  
"Not /nice/ in the conventional way," Eva said. "But I think he was at least making an effort. To not start anything, anyway."  
  
"And how could you tell /that/?"  
  
"It's my /job/," Eva stated bluntly. "Go and take Reece upstairs before she starts to wake up."  
  
Juri rolled his eyes. If Eva didn't want to say something, Eva wasn't going to say anything. If she had a secret she would take it with her to the grave, on pain of torture.  
  
"Whatever...good night, Eva-chan."  
  
"Bye," Eva replied and Juri shut the door behind himself. The door had an automatic lock.  
  
*  
  
The morning came too early for all involved.  
  
Eva woke up sprawled on her couch, long black coat covering her like a blanket. She sat up, and threw the coat over the couch and ran into the shower, cursing her hangover to hell and back. It was already ten and she had until noon to make it to Theed and complete the transaction.  
  
~  
  
What kind of sick ningen tradition was it to barge in on people and assume that they were welcome?  
  
The jinzouningen glared with barely concealed contempt at his latest guest. This one seemed even less perceptive of his ire than even the Reece ningen last night.  
  
He was looking all around Juunana's apartment as if totally amazed that a building could have a room with a ceiling, X number of walls, and a floor in it.  
  
"Oh, wow!" the ningen exclaimed, seeming totally enchanted. Juunanagou stared holes into his back, wishing he could satisfy the urge to rip off the man's head. "I've never been in this place! You know, the rumors always were Tanaka had an entire forest in here! Whenever he opened his door the hall always smelled funny for hours after it."  
  
"Intriguing," Juunana stated dryly.  
  
"No, really. The whole place smelled like weed."  
  
"No, really. /Intriguing/," Juunanagou said with as much sarcasm as he could stuff into three words.  
  
Outside, Juunanagou heard Eva's door slam wide open, something crash, and Eva's 'colorful' voice cut straight through the cheap drywall.  
  
"Where's /she/ off to so fast?" Juunana said in a flat voice, more to himself and out of un-admitted jealousy than curiosity.  
  
The ningen glanced at him. "Oh, /Eva/? I'd rather not /ask/ her," the ningen shuddered and passed back into his happy-happy mood. "This really is a nice place. Guess I was wrong about old Mr. Tanaka all those years."  
  
"Why wouldn't you ask her?" Juunanagou asked, interest slightly pequed at the ningen's flinch.  
  
"Well..." the ningen obviously looked pained, and obviously didn't know that Juunanagou had gone out with Eva and company last night. "Nobody...well, nobody knows what she /does/. And when you're living in an apartment tenement like this, well, we all /know/ each other. She's lived her a while, longer than /me/, and she doesn't really associate with /anyone/."  
  
"So /what/?" Juunanangou demanded. Maybe she just doesn't /like/ any of you, he thought with an acid smile. I can see why, if that's the case.  
  
"And...well, some of the really old people here say...say..." The ningen trailed off and leaned into Juunanagou's face, and whispered, "Don't tell /anyone/ I told you this, but...I've heard Eva's in with the /yakuza/. Not too high up--but not a person to cross with, you get me?"  
  
"The /yakuza/?" he repeated, incredulous. Eva was anything but a killer. She might have her strange points but Juunanagou couldn't imagine her staring down the length of her arm, gun pointed at a random head, executing another ningen in cold blood; no matter who told her to do it.  
  
The ningen brushed a strand or two of long, dark brown hair behind his ear and smiled charmingly. Juunanagou stiffened, and the ningen changed the subject. "Soo, Mr. Gou. What brings you to the slums?"  
  
"I'd have to kill you," the android said, only half-joking in a dry sort of way.  
  
The ningen smiled again. He was by far too happy. I didn't do my job well enough, Juunanagou thought irritably. Damned ningens.  
  
"In that case I won't ask you again until you tell me on your own," the ningen said and turned to the door. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. Gou. If you have any questions or need to know anything, just ask for Gaia Hirano. That's me. I've got the room three down the hall from you," he said.  
  
And with that his visitor dissapeared and closed the door.  
  
I suppose that was who Reece was talking about last night, he thought drearily. The ningen transvestite.  
  
~  
  
"I can't /believe/ you were almost late," a tall, stringy man with shocking orange hair said. He glared down at Eva with extreme dissaproval.  
  
"You could if you were me," Eva muttered.  
  
"Which I'm /not/," the man said, at least seven years Eva's elder and thrice her equal in the field. "With /Reece/, I presume?" The sarcastic edge in his voice betrayed his intolerance of Eva's friend.  
  
"Yeah," Eva rolled her eyes. "Her boyfriend, and my new nieghbor. I felt really bad about draggin' his ass along when he didn't wanna come."  
  
This man had always scared Eva, even if she had been able to overcome it a little through the years. He just had this kind of abstract, innocent expression that Eva knew was a blatant lie.  
  
The transaction was beneath the old bridge that connected East and West Theed before the androids turned it into a virtual cataclysmic wasteland. "Are you ready?" the man asked, glancing down at her with piercing black eyes. "I hope that damned gun of yours won't stall this time."  
  
"I--er--"  
  
"I have no need for /incompetents/," the man snapped harshly. "It's a yes or no question, Evangeline."  
  
"Yes!" Eva said, forcing a confident syllable.  
  
"If you make it through this one alive, I'll get you a new one, how does that sound?"  
  
Eva was well aware of how strange the question might have sounded to anyone else but her face lit up. "What kind?"  
  
"Don't push it," the man said coolly.  
  
He stopped and stared straight ahead.  
  
They'd never so much as trusted her with the keys to where they kept the toilet paper.  
  
It was her job to make sure, under any circumstances, that Rice Nimitz came back alive and breathing, preferably in one piece.  
  
It was a strange, scared feeling but she was pushing it into the back of her head. Even though she knew five men would be hidden 500 metres away, military grade automatic rifles targeted on the other runner, the sense she might not outlive the next five minutes was crushing.  
  
If something happened to Nimitz when she was daydreaming, she had no idea what they would do to her for her negligence.  
  
Theed Bridge had once been a really beautiful bridge. Eva had never seen it in one piece but in the newspapers she collected there were gorgeous pictures of it's opening day. It had been a massive, double-deckered four laned highway suspension bridge, with a tower on each side and cables holding it up. It had been hailed as a marvel of the century, linking East and West Theed, which had been historically rifted by the three-kilometer- wide river that ran straight throught the heart of the metropolis.  
  
Well, it /had/ been. Until the androids blew it up.  
  
~  
  
Juunana's head jerked around and suppressed the instinctive urge to fire on the door. Haven't these /idiots/ had enough of me?!  
  
Whichever ningen was out in the hall hadn't stopped banging on his door in all the time he took to cross the living room (if you could call a run down space like that such a nice name) and open the door.  
  
/Reece/.  
  
His eyes narrowed dangerously as he gazed down at the ningen with a malicious stare. Of all the ningens he'd been forced to meet, from the fat woman in the muumuu to the creepy transvestite, this one was the most aggrevating.  
  
The curly-haired girl stared up at him with wide eyes. "You got any idea where Eva is?"  
  
"No," I sneered bluntly.  
  
Juunanagou glanced to the side as her 'boyfriend' came up behind her, panting. "I--sorry...she's all pissed off at Eva," he tried to explain and tried to drag Reece away.  
  
Reece jerked her arm out of his grasp and stuck her face in Juunanagou's. "Geroff, Juri!" she snapped. "Look, I know you know where she went! So go on and tell me!"  
  
"I don't know where your stupid little friend ran off to," he snarled. "What makes you think /I/ know?"  
  
Reece glared at Juunanagou with all her might (it was a laughable effort compared to his).  
  
"Reece, stop it," Juri snapped and Reece turned around on him.  
  
"Don't tell me to stop it!" Reece said.  
  
"//I just did!//"  
  
Reece opened her mouth to reply, but Juri didn't give her the chance. He glanced at Juunanagou, tilted his head at him in a silent apology, and yanked Reece down the hall.  
  
Juunanagou slammed his door shut and stalked back into his room. What had he been doing, again? Oh, right. Trying to figure out how to pay bills.  
  
**  
  
Ok, people are naturally wierd. They will always be wierd. There is no such thing as a 'normal' human being. Some of us just stray farther from the pack than others. And there really are such things as transvestites. Rocky Horror Picture Show RAWKS, baby!!!  
  
Oh, and...I did say Reece was based on a friend of mine, right, didn't I? Yup...I'd say that was pretty in-character for my friend...*cough* Scary, neh?  
  
Plus. The people in Juunanagou's apartment building think his name is Juunana Gou. Juunana=1st name, Gou=2nd name. Go figure.  
  
Please R&R, won't you please, this can't be THAT bad!!!! *cries*  
  
Thank you, Kim!! *huggles* You reviewed!!! 


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